BX 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

§§3n 



Shelf,D„6„?8 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN; 

OR, 

The Story of jasper l. douthit. 



by 

A P. PUTNAM. 



JJMAIT 

c ongr ess) 
[Washington] 



0 MY 28 7888 



BOSTON : 
DAMRELL & UPHAM. 

OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. 

1888. 



Copyright, 1888, 
DAMRELL & UPHAM 



PRESS OF 

S. J. Parkhill & Co., 222 Franklin St., 
Boston, Mass. 



The materials for this story of a singularly 
brave and useful man are mostly gathered from a 
variety of brief personal sketches and reports of 
missionary work which are found scattered through 
Unitarian papers, magazines, and other publica- 
tions for the last quarter of a century, and there- 
fore must be more or less familiar to many minds. 
I have thought it might serve a good purpose to 
cull from these numerous accounts what might 
best illustrate his life and character, and present 
it in this simple and connected form. If the 
record, as thus given, shall have the effect, in any 
measure, to strengthen the hands of the friend and 
brother who is still battling for truth and right- 
eousness, or to encourage others to live nobly 
and victoriously, even under most adverse circum- 
stances, my object and wish in writing these 
pages will not have been in vain. 

A. P. Putnam. 

Concord, Mass., April 25, 1888. 



3 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



JASPER L. DOUTHIT. 

If I remember aright, the first time I heard or 
learned the name of Jasper L. Douthit was when, 
with some dear friends, I was in attendance at 
the sessions of the Western Unitarian Confer- 
ence, held at Meadville, Pa., in June, 1864. The 
meetings were very interesting, and were marked 
by all the peculiar freshness and earnestness of 
spirit that have so often characterized such occa- 
sions, in that part of the country. At one of 
them, some speaker made mention of a certain 
young preacher, who, not long before, had with- 
drawn from one of the older and larger evangeli- 
cal communions, and who, having fought his way 
alone out into a larger freedom and into a simpler 
faith, had begun, on his own account, to do very 
earnest and self-denying missionary work, in and 
about his native place, in Shelby County, in 

5 



6 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



Southern Illinois. It was said of him that he 
had enjoyed but very limited advantages for edu- 
cation, that he had been much inured to poverty 
and hardship, and that out of his deep love of 
God and man, and his intense desire to be a most 
useful minister of the Word, he wanted to go 
through a regular course of theological study, 
and so be fitted for a higher service and wider 
influence in his chosen profession. The brief 
account that was given of his plain, unaffected, 
rustic simplicity of manner and character, his 
brave spirit and hard struggles, his ardent relig- 
ious zeal and his noble aspirations, and his 
exceptional natural gifts for the kind of labor 
which was required of an apostle of Christ in the 
region where his lot had been cast, and where he 
would fain renew or continue his life-work in the 
years to come, — all this touched every heart in 
the audience, and when it was suggested that 
money should be given on the spot to enable this 
young man to go at once to the "School of the 
Prophets," at Meadville, Pa., the response was 
immediate, and the contributions were generous. 
With a constantly growing number of liberal be- 
lievers, I have followed Mr. Douthit with not a 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



7 



little personal interest and admiration, from then 
nntil now, and have observed how fully, at every 
succeeding stage of his career, the testimony and 
confidence of that assemblage of 1864 have been 
justified in this brother's continually increasing 
power and helpfulness and consecration in the 
Lord. 

ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE. 

The story of his life is pathetic and instruc- 
tive. He was born October 10, 1834, in Shelby 
County, 111., about four miles and a half from 
Shelbyville, where he has long resided, and where 
he still has his headquarters. At his native 
place, surrounded by a flat, prairie country, he 
grew up and toiled on his father's farm, until he 
was seventeen years of age. In that vicinity he 
buried his mother and grandparents, while many 
others of his kindred and name are still there 
among the living. All the latter, old and young, 
have been known to be present, again and again, 
to hear Jasper preach in the meeting-house, which 
stands on the very spot where was once the old 
unhewn log school-building in which he learned 
his ABC. 



8 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



His grandfather and great-grandfather Douthit 
were born in South Carolina, but his father in 
Tennessee. The great-grandfather was a " hard- 
shell " Calyinistic Baptist minister, and was one 
of the first preachers in Shelby County. But 
before Jasper was born, or in the year 1832, or 
thereabouts, he and all his family except Jasper's 
grandfather moved to Texas, then a part of 
Mexico, and they were with the army that finally 
captured Santa Anna, and made Texas a free 
state or republic. Influenced by the large land 
grants offered to settlers, the grandfather him- 
self removed thither, and with him his son, Jas- 
per's father, Andrew E. Douthit, with all his 
family. This was in 1843, and the subject of our 
sketch was then about the age of nine. The 
roads were rough and dangerous. The little 
band of emigrants rode in wagons, and it took 
them about a month to accomplish the journey. 
It was nearly a twelvemonth later that the boy 
of ten — as he has ever since well remembered 
— heard his great-grandfather, then very old, 
feeble, and trembling with palsy, give a short 
exhortation one Sunday, while a man stood on 
each side of the aged apostle, to hold him up as 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



9 



he spoke. Jasper cannot recall what he said, 
further than that he counselled all who were 
present to be faithful Christians to the end. The 
picture of the venerable patriarch, with his snow- 
white locks and long gray beard, made a deep 
impression upon the lad, and has often brought to 
his mind, very naturally, the well known story of 
St. John, how, in extreme old age, he was ac- 
customed to be borne to church by his disciples, 
and would there say to them: "Little children, 
love one another." This ancestor of the Douthit 
family lived past his four-score. He was of 
Scotch descent. His wife was Irish, with a mix- 
ture of Welsh blood, and was a bright, wiry little 
woman, surviving until after our civil war, and 
until she was one hundred and fifteen years old. 
Both died near Palestine, Tex. Back there in 
the past there were several other preachers of 
the same stock, but they were mostly Methodists. 
Jasper's mother, a daughter of Francis Jordan, 
was born in Franklin County, 111., at a fort built 
as a protection against the Indians, her people 
having come there, through Kentucky, from the 
South. She was early an orphan, was quite illit- 
erate, and, weak and frail of body as she was, 



10 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



had to work hard in keeping house for her father, 
who had a large family to support. They dwelt 
in the backwoods, where there w r ere no schools ; 
but, after the day's toil was over, she learned to 
read and write, by herself alone. She was very 
conscientious, and was very courageous in de- 
nouncing slavery and intemperance, when, at the 
time, and in the neighborhood in which she lived, 
it cost dearly to be that. She was one of the mill- 
ions who have been Channing Unitarians with- 
out knowing it. She never heard the name until 
she heard it from her son ; and when she first 
listened to his sermons, in which he expounded 
its meaning, she would say to him ; " Why, my 
child, that is just what I have always believed ! " 
Her friends and acquaintances, of other sects, 
were inclined to excuse her heresy, saying that, 
though her head was all wrong, her heart was 
right. Aside from this bright faith, and beautiful 
devotion to truth and duty, her life was one of 
pain and sorrow and endless care. Greatly loved 
while yet she was in the flesh, she was triumphant 
in death, and, as her spirit was taking its flight, 
her face was that of an angel. 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



11 



HARD WORK AND SCANT EDUCATION. 

This branch of the family had remained but a 
short time in Texas. They were there long 
enough to pick one cotton crop with the help 
of negroes, and then returned by water, first 
going by way of the Red River down to New 
Orleans, and then ascending the Mississippi from 
that city to St. Louis, a journey of twelve tedious 
days by steamboat. Thence they rode in wagons, 
over a hundred miles, to their home in Shelby 
County, arriving in season to plant and raise a 
crop of corn and oats for the year. For a long 
time, Jasper was to enjoy but small opportunity 
for reading and study. Young as he was, he was 
obliged to work constantly on the farm, except as 
he varied the scene by a brief winter at school, 
such as it was. The first words he had ever 
learned to read were these, "The Holy Bible." 
It was a lesson as prophetic as it was sacred, and 
it was caught from the title-page of an ancient 
copy of the Scriptures, handed down in the fam- 
ily. He has been known to tell how his grand- 
mother was wont to hold him, as a little child, in 
her lap, and tell him stories from the dear old 

✓ 



12 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



volume, and the impressions which were thus 
made upon his mind were never effaced. Among 
the books that earliest engaged him were " Rob- 
inson Crusoe," the "Life of Davy Crockett," 
Weem's "Life of Marion," Grimshaw's " History 
of the United States," etc. But all such pur- 
suits were deemed a misfortune, rather than an 
advantage, by many around him, and when he 
had mastered the " three R's," his father thought 
he had secured a sufficient outfit. Jasper thought 
otherwise, and decided to run away from home 
and seek his own fortunes. In order to get money 
for more education, he first let himself out to 
work in shovelling dirt, on the Illinois Central 
Railroad. His parents were distressed at his 
departure, and persuaded him to return, with 
the promise that he should have more of his 
coveted privileges if he would only come back. 
Back he came, and for two years attended the 
Shelby Seminary, building its fires and sweeping 
its rooms for his tuition, and teaching and doing 
a variety of other work for his board, while his 
mother managed to keep him in clothing. While 
thus connected with this institution, he united 
with the Methodist Church, stating, at the same 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



13 



time, that he did not endorse all its articles of 
faith. Nevertheless, when it was seen what a 
deep and earnest religious faith possessed him, 
and how much he was fitted by "grace," and by 
" nature " also, to preach the Gospel, a license 
was freely offered him to engage in the work. 
This, however, he declined, from conscientious 
scruples. After being diverted from various 
wishes or plans to continue his studies at An- 
tioch College, Ohio, and Asbury University, 
at Greencastle, Ind., he repaired to Wabash 
College (Presbyterian) at Crawfordsville, Ind., 
where, for the most of the time, he lived on 
plain bread and roasted potatoes, and, as before, 
swept the rooms for his tuition. At length he 
fell sick and must needs return home ; but, just 
as he was about to start, he was told that he 
might have a free course through Lane Univer- 
sity, if he would study for the ministry. Joyfully 
he accepted the offer, having wished from very 
boyhood to make that his profession. But it was 
with the understanding that he was not to be 
bound to preach contrary to his own convic- 
tions. It was not altogether a satisfactory ar- 
rangement, and it is hardly surprising that when 



14 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



he reached home and his father made him a 
tempting offer of a place in a book and drug 
store, he consented, for the time, to remain and 
enter into that business. But soon came the 
financial crash of 1857, when failure and debt 
seemed the fate of all. Mr. Douthit was no 
exception. Jasper w T as now married, and both 
he and his wife were obliged to teach school 
to pay their current bills, and cancel all money 
obligations of the past. 

MARRIAGE AND EASTERN ADVENTURES. 

The lady whom he had married, during that 
very year, was Emily Lovell, of East Abington, 
now Rockland, Mass. It was presently felt that 
the limited sphere of their united service was 
too small for their support, as well as for their 
aspirations. Something else must be done, and 
what should it be? There was no opportunity 
around him. All were poor, and he himself was 
among the poorest. He knew but little of the 
great outside world, and there were none to coun- 
sel or help him. Yet he felt within a high am- 
bition to take some worthy part in the moral 
and spiritual struggles and movements of his 



A UNITARIAN OBEKLIN. 



15 



time, and how was he straitened until he should 
be more fully qualified to do it ! He went forth, 
not quite knowing whither he went, but believ- 
ing that there was yet some good work for him 
to do, and that God would lead him in the way 
to it. This was in 1858, and we first find him 
studying and working with Prof. D. P. Butler, 
for Fowler & Wells, phrenologists, in their branch 
office, 142 Washington Street, Boston. During 
his connection with that establishment, he trav- 
elled through Massachusetts, and lectured on 
Phrenology and the Science of Health. While 
thus employed, he made the acquaintance of 
numerous abolitionists and spiritualists, many of 
whom attended his lectures. But he met no 
Unitarians. He heard no Unitarian preacher 
in all that time. Yet his profound interest in 
the anti-slavery cause led him to read such ser- 
mons about it by Theodore Parker and James 
Freeman Clarke as appeared occasionally in 
the Boston papers and came to his hand. He 
had an intense desire to hear Mr. Parker preach 
his farewell discourse to his people. He was 
eighteen miles from the city, and set out to walk 
the whole distance for the purpose ; but at the 



16 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



end of seven miles he was too much exhausted to 
proceed, and so, greatly to his sorrow, was obliged 
to retrace his steps. He had no money for rides 
not required for his regular daily work. In 1859, 
he returned home to Shelby County, poorer than 
ever. There, in a little farm cabin, the future 
preacher and his wife, with the babe, went to 
housekeeping. The very first time he had a 
chance to speak in public, he declared himself an 
abolitionist. This, in addition to the offence of 
having married a Yankee woman, was a crowning 
sin with the pro-slavery Democracy that was then 
rampant in Southern Illinois, especially as it in- 
volved an utter renunciation of the ruling party, 
for whose last elected candidate for the presi- 
dency, James Buchanan, Douthit had cast his 
first vote. At the opening of the Eebellion, he 
became associate editor of the Shelby Freeman, 
which had advocated the election of Abraham 
Lincoln, and was the first paper in that section 
of the State to maintain the cause of " free soil, 
free labor, and free speech," but which was some 
time afterward given up, when its senior editor 
entered the army. In its issue of February 15, 
1861, Jasper said : " With a hatred of slavery 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



17 



equal to our love of freedom, we cast our first 
vote for James Buchanan ! O what a blunder 
was that ! Why commit such a blunder ? Mani- 
festly, because we were cradled in Democracy, 
and believed it could be no wrong." Full soon 
he saw the true light and was destined to make 
ample rectification of his mistake. 

POLITICS AND RELIGION AT HOME. 

He was now living with his family in a remote 
district, about eight miles from Shelbyville, where 
he was surrounded by " Knights of the Golden 
Circle " and others, who were banded together to 
resist the draft. Rumors were rife that whoever 
should allow himself to act as a government 
enrolling officer would be shot. Douthit was 
appointed to the position and at once accepted it. 
As he was about to start on his business, which 
would take him through a large part of the 
county, he was strongly advised to go armed, but 
this he refused to do. At many of the places he 
visited or passed through, there were kind, wise, 
peace-loving people, who used their influence to 
prevent scenes of bloodshed, and this, in connec- 
tion with various precautions observed by Jasper 



18 



A UNITARIAN OBEHLIN. 



himself, doubtless saved his life amidst manifold 
dangers. One night a dozen shots were fired 
through the open doors of his house, and on other 
occasions persons threatened him with death, face 
to face, but he went on, calmly and fearlessly, in 
the performance of his duty, and neither himself 
nor his family suffered serious harm. He was 
often called to speak at meetings held in the 
interest of freedom and the Union, and, publicly 
as well as privately, he continued unto the end 
to plead and act in behalf of the soldier, the 
bondman, and the nation. 

Mrs. Douthit, previous to her marriage, had 
often, with great delight, heard Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson speak upon the various subjects 
of reform that have always so much engaged him. 
East Abington, her former home, had been a fa- 
vorite resort of anti-slavery orators, and perhaps 
she had not seldom listened there to his eloquent 
words for liberty. She knew then that he was 
or had been a Unitarian preacher. And now, 
when, after a lapse of years, the thought in some 
way came to her and her husband that the latter 
might be permitted to preach in Unitarian pul- 
pits, taking none but Christ as Master, the only 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



19 



one to whom they felt they could write and apply 
for counsel and friendly offices in regard to the 
matter was the noble man whom we have named 
above. How slight the acquaintance, yet how 
fortunate the appeal ! What a slender thread it 
is that sometimes holds securely for us a rich 
store of blessings , and how wonderful, indeed, 
are the ways in which we are often led from dark- 
ness into light by a Power that is not our own ! 
Mr. Higginson wrote to Mr. Douthit that he him- 
self had left the ministry, but that he would 
refer him to Robert Collyer, then a minister-at- 
large in Chicago, saying, " I don't know how rad- 
ical he is, but he is liberal, which is better.' 4 Jas- 
per, accordingly, turned to the kindred spirit at 
the great Lake City, and the voice came back to 
him, Come and see me, and let us go together to the 
Conference soon to be held in Detroit, Well might 
he afterwards say, " I was not disobedient unto 
the heavenly vision." 

ORDINATION, STUDY AND PREACHING. 

There at Detroit, June 22, 1862, he was regu- 
larly ordained to the ministry, as a preacher of 
liberal Christianity, Mr. Collyer, Rev. Dr. Geo. 



20 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIN. 



W. Hosmer, Rev. Charles G. Ames, and others 
taking part in the service. On his return home, 
he continued to preach there and in the region 
round about, in schoolhouses, groves, private 
dwellings, or wherever else he could get a hear- 
ing. Then came the felt need of a higher prepa- 
ration for his work, and then came also the help 
that was given to him to make sure of it, as 
described at the beginning of our sketch. Pass- 
ing through a three years' course of theological 
study at the Meadville school, he was graduated 
in June, 1867. Immediately afterward, for a brief 
time, he was minister at Princeton, 111., where he 
preached to a people composed mostly of those 
who had been members of the Congregational 
church of which Hon. Owen Lovejoy, brother of 
the martyr, had been pastor, and where among 
his parishioners were three brothers of Wm. C. 
Bryant, the poet. But his heart longed for the 
old scenes of his childhood, and thither finally he 
went, to find there henceforth the permanent 
scene of his activity and usefulness. 

With the help of his brother, he now built a 
shanty, which he occupied with his family, until 
not long afterward, when he erected a small but 



A UNITARIAN OBEBLIN. 



21 



more comfortable dwelling-house, in which they 
lived until 1875. His first preaching in this 
vicinity as a Unitarian clergyman, for two years 
(1867-1869), was mostly at "Log Church," an old 
building, situated three and a half miles east of 
Shelbyville, and first used by the Predestinarian 
Baptists. 

All about this old log church, it was a wood- 
chopping people to whom he ministered. They 
were very poor and had been accustomed to 
the worst sort of Calvinistic teaching, those 
who essayed to instruct and guide them being 
about as ill educated as themselves. On one oc- 
casion, when a Baptist preacher occupied the desk, 
he declaimed against an educated ministry as be- 
ing of the devil and as calculated to " deceive the 
very elect," and inveighed generally against the 
need or uses of learning, especially in connection 
with religion. Douthit was present, and, at the 
close of the service, rose and invited all who 
might be interested to come to the place at an 
appointed time and help organize a Sunday-school. 
The response was most gratifying. A large num- 
ber met and the enterprise was a success. In the 
evenings he preached to crowded houses, but his 



22 



A UNITARIAN OBETtLIN. 



hearers had not been in the habit of paying 
ministers, nor were they able to do it ; and all 
the material aid which the new liberal evangelist 
received for his first year's work was a big jug 
of molasses, given by a poor foreigner who thought 
that the laborer was worthy of his hire ! The 
next year the local contributions amounted to 1 
about ten dollars. Meanwhile Mrs. Douthit 
taught a subscription school, to eke out a sup- 
port for the family. Help began to come from 
other quarters. Rev. Dr. Lothrop, of Boston, sent 
a hundred dollars. About a hundred and fifty 
valuable books were received from other friends 
of the same city, for a Sunday-school library. 
The gift was most thankfully accepted, notwith- 
standing certain opposition from some on account 
of the Eastern source whence it came. " Horse- 
racing and card-playing were less frequent on 
Sundays, and the dramshops grew less popular 
and began to feel the penalty of violating the 
law," says a printed report, that tells us of the 
good effect which the increased reading of those 
books produced upon the people of the neighbor- 
hood. There was need enough of it, surely. 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 23 
SCENES IN THE OLD LOG CHURCH. 

Several fights took place during sessions of the 
Sunday-school, and one time Jasper himself, 
while opening the exercises, was ruthlessly at- 
tacked by a drunken man, who was incensed 
against him for his strong advocacy of temper- 
ance principles. Quite a vigorous struggle en- 
sued, but soon the brutish fellow, by the help of 
the larger boys, was put out-of-doors, lifted upon 
a horse, and sent away. Superintendent, teachers, 
and pupils then returned to their places and sang 
"Wine is a Mocker," and proceeded with the 
lessons of the hour. In that old log church 
was heard, for the first time probably in Shelby 
County, the hymn, " Nearer, My God, to Thee," 
which has had such a remarkable history. Jas- 
per's now sainted brother, George, had learned to 
sing it while a student at Antioch ; nor must we 
fail to add, just here, the tribute paid to the lat- 
ter in 1873, by Dr. Hosmer, who was then presi- 
dent of the college at that place : " George W. 
Douthit, whose death we mourn, rose up in the 
light of Jasper's noble life. Quickened, inspired, 
and aided, he came here for education to prepare 



24 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



himself for usefulness in helping Jasper scatter 
darkness. He has distinguished himself here, 
showing large ability and fine intuitions ; al- 
ways grave, earnest, and manly, he prompted 
his fellow-students to true, noble life. The de- 
parture of such a young man is a sad loss to us, 
to his home, and to his country." And there in the 
old log church, too, it was that the first Christ- 
mas tree was set up in Shelby County. But long 
since the woods were quite cut away, the chop- 
pers went to other parts, and the building was 
no longer used. 

SALEM, EAST AND WEST. 

Another place which at the outset witnessed 
Mr. Douthit's labors as a preacher of Liberal Chris- 
tianity was Salem, now Oak Grove, The church 
which he planted there was duly organized, June 
1, 1868. The meeting, at that date, took place 
in the old schoolhouse ; but the structure was too 
small to accommodate the crowd of people who 
were present, and accordingly, the weather being 
warm and pleasant, they adjourned to hold the 
service immediately afterward in the shade of an 
old elm near by. Elder John Ellis, of the sect of 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



25 



the " Christians," or Campbellites, who had ren- 
dered Mr. Douthit efficient help at the Log Church, 
preached the sermon. On the 6th of July, Mr. 
Douthit announced to the assembled friends that 
it was proposed to erect a house of worship, to be 
held jointly for the use chiefly of the Campbellites 
and Liberal Christians. The edifice was com- 
pleted in time for dedication, September 29, 1870, 
when Robert Collyer " preached an eloquent ser- 
mon, which will long be remembered by those 
who, heard it." The covenant which this infant 
church adopted earlier in the year was, for the 
most part, in the very words of that which was 
drawn up for, and accepted by, the First Church 
in Salem, Mass., in 1629, the author of it being 
the pastor, Rev. Francis Higginson, ancestor of 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who here appears 
again as a wise friend of the Douthits and their 
work. The old colonial progenitor and his worthy 
descendant, though distanced from each other in 
time by a space of nearly two centuries and a half, 
meet in giving from the old Salem of the East to 
the new Salem of the West, " Puritanism's Origi- 
nal Declaration of Independence in America." 
This Declaration, or Covenant, is simple, liberal, 



26 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



practical, Christian. In 1881, over sixty members 
had joined this Oak Grove church, under this 
form, but some of them have since moved away, 
or transferred their connection to another of Mr. 
Douthit's organizations of like character. The 
chapel which was thus here built and consecrated 
has a peculiar interest for us as having witnessed 
the thrilling scene of Robert Collyer's very touch- 
ing and beautiful " Story of the Prairies," as pub- 
lished in a small tract by the American Unitarian 
Association ; — a tract which has been widely read 
on both sides of the Atlantic and has even been 
translated into another tongue. It consists mostly 
of a literal report of a speech which was made by 
a Mr. John Oliver Reed, in October, 1872, and in 
which he " gave his experience of a wonderful and 
radical conversion, and made a public confession 
of Christian faith, which those who knew him be- 
lieved to be sincere, and which by his after life 
proved to be quite real ! Although an humble 
farmer, and unlettered man, yet his words on this 
occasion seemed inspired, and they kindled a 
warmth and light that like all true words continue 
to burn in the hearts of men, and are destined to 
shine on forever." The lips from which fell those 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



27 



simple, heartfelt, melting words are silent now, 
but their ministry still works on, and if Mr. Dou- 
thit had never done aught else than to bring such 
a preacher under his power and influence, and 
evoke from him such an utterance, he would not 
have lived and wrought in vain. It should be 
added, with reference to Oak Grove Chapel, that 
those who could not subscribe money for its erec- 
tion gave their contribution in work, and a Mr. 
Jacob Sittler generously volunteered to superin- 
tend and assist the carpenters in their labor. 

MATTOON AND LITTLE IDA LANE. 

One of the early places that engaged Mr. Dou- 
thit's missionary labors was Mattoon, which is 
now a thriving little city of about ten thousand 
inhabitants, and is distant from Shelby ville about 
twenty miles. He began to preach there in 1868, 
at first hiring a hall himself, and then in the same 
spirit advertising the services and making other 
arrangements. The attendance at the outset was 
small, but the interest deepened and widened as 
the meetings continued to be held. In December 
of the above year, the village was visited by the 
illustrious philosopher and bard, Ralph Waldo 



28 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



Emerson, who delivered a lecture there and was 
asked by Mr. Douthit to assist him in connection 
with the regular public worship on the next day. 
This he cheerfully consented to do, agreeing to 
read the Scripture lesson and a discourse, if Mr. 
Douthit himself would do the praying! The ser- 
mon was on the Immortality of the Soul, and made 
a great impression on those who assembled to hear 
it. A week later, Unity Church was organized. 
The numbers and the enthusiasm still increased, 
and ere long a brick house of worship was erected, 
at a cost of ten thousand dollars. The infant so- 
ciety had built beyond its means, and this fact, in 
connection with other circumstances, explains the 
embarrassments that ensued. Rescue came in a 
most unexpected and touching way. Little Ida 
Lane was wont to call the church her own and she 
loved it dearly. By and by, she sickened and 
died. Mr. Douthit officiated at her funeral, and 
after the service her father, who had been deeply 
interested in the new enterprise and edifice, told 
him that he would give his departed daughter's 
share of his own estate towards the payment of 
whatever debt was due, if the balance could be 
raised among other friends. All was done that 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



29 



could be done at Mattoon itself, before any 
thought was entertained of help from abroad. 
One day, as Mr. Do u tint returned to his home, he 
found a letter from Miss Addie Brown, of Provi- 
dence, R. I., asking him to come on to the Minis- 
terial Union, soon to convene in that city, and 
saying that his expenses on and back should be 
paid if he would do so. He accepted the invita- 
tion, and when he told there the simple story of 
little Ida, another lady, Mrs. Anna Richmond, 
gave him the larger part of the thousand dollars 
still due. The remainder was soon contributed, 
principally by Robert Collyer's Chicago Society, 
and by Miss Dorothea L. Dix, who in this case 
and at other times manifested her warm sympathy 
and friendship for the philanthropic preacher. 
The dear child's church, after many a change and 
struggle, still lives to share her blessing and to re- 
joice in the ministry of its founder. 

Among other enterprises which have commanded 
the energy and zeal of our Shelby County apostle 
has been the Christian Union Church, near Mode, 
for which a house of worship was finished and 
dedicated in 1873. And again Mr. Collyer 
preached the dedication sermon. An Indepen- 



30 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



dent Christian Organization was established here 
in 1875, and it has been ministered to by Rev. 
James F. Brown, who resides in the village of 
Mode, and who has preached to other congrega- 
tions in the vicinity. But it is not necessary to 
detail all the missionary work of this kind which 
our brother has wrought in the county that gave 
him birth and that has known him so well. There 
are few places within its limits which have not 
been blessed by his presence and by his words and 
deeds. 

SHELBY VILLE, THE CENTRE. 

The most important of the societies he has 
founded is the Liberal Christian Church at Shelby- 
ville, which is still his own special charge. At 
this place he began regular preaching, February 
15, 1874, in the old court-house. Various unsuc- 
cessful attempts had been made in this direction 
before. But now a more vigorous and persistent 
effort was to be put forth, cost what it might. 
One or two dozen persons were present at the 
first service. As the meetings continued, the 
attendance grew larger and larger. A Sunday- 
school was organized in the spring, and that, too, 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



31 



increased to more and more. Rev. Dr. James 
Freeman Clarke's Church of the Disciples, in Bos- 
ton, sent to it a donation of books for a library, 
and Jacob C. Smith (then a deacon of the Presby- 
terian Church), of Marshall, 111., aided the mis- 
sion effectually by his services in teaching a pop- 
ular singing-school. On the 13th of May thirteen 
persons united in church covenant by signing the 
following statement : " We who have here sub- 
scribed our names do unite ourselves together as 
the body of communicants in the First Con- 
gregational Church of Shelbyville, 111. By so 
doing, we profess our faith in Jesus Christ, as the 
Son of God and the Saviour of men, and ac- 
knowledge the Bible as the divinely authorized 
rule of faith and practice to which it is our duty 
as Christians to submit. By thus uniting our- 
selves together, we claim no right to exclude any 
one from this communion on account of differ- 
ence of doctrinal opinions, nor for any reason 
except undoubted immorality of conduct." In 
November of the same year, the members had in- 
creased to twenty-one, and the church was more 
fully organized under a proper form of govern- 
ment. About this time the congregation was 



32 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



visited by Hon. George Partridge, of St. Louis, 
who was impressed with a sense of the need of a 
more fitting place of worship, and offered five 
hundred dollars towards the erection of a suitable 
edifice. The friends at Shelbyville, encouraged 
by the generous gift, responded nobly to the ap- 
peal that was now made to them to contribute to 
the enterprise. The corner-stone of the new 
church was laid on Monday, November 21, 1875, 
ministers of various orthodox as well as liberal de- 
nominations assisting in the ceremonies. As an 
indication of the extraordinary interest which was 
thus awakened, it may be stated that, during the 
months of the following February and March, meet- 
ings were held every evening in the court-house, at 
which Mr. Douthit was greatly helped and cheered 
by Elder John Ellis, who, at other places as well 
as here, was one of his most sympathizing and 
devoted colaborers. Through the influence of 
this protracted series of meetings, the member- 
ship of the church rose almost to the number of 
one hundred. Meanwhile the work of building 
made rapid progress, and the eighth day of the next 
May saw the new house completed and dedicated. 
Dr. Clarke, of Boston, preached the dedication 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIN. 



33 



sermon in the morning, and Dr. Eliot, of St. 
Louis, preached in the evening, when Mr. Douthit 
was duly installed as pastor. The building was 
made to accommodate about four hundred per- 
sons, and the church and the Sunday-school have 
since witnessed to a healthy growth and to con- 
tinued and unabated interest in its Christian faith 
and life. 

"OUR BEST WORDS." 

One of the most important features of Mr. 
Douthit's work, during his regular pastorate of 
the church at Shelbyville for twelve years, has 
been the establishment and editing of his brave 
and somewhat famous little paper, Our Best 
Words, which he started in 1879, and which he 
has ever since conducted with all his well known 
ability and unflagging zeal. While engaged in 
his incessant labors, in preaching and lecturing, 
in addressing public meetings and talking to 
Sunday-schools in Shelbyville and the surround- 
ing towns and villages and hamlets, he came to 
know the people and their circumstances better 
than any one else, and he felt the need of some 
such winged messenger of truth and love, by 



34 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIN. 



which he could constantly come into communica- 
tion with them all from week to week, giving them 
his written word when he could not reach them 
with his spoken, and statedly supplementing the 
latter with the former. It did not seek to be a 
learned, labored exponent of the Liberal Faith, 
dealing largely with hard and dry theological and 
metaphysical problems. Another service than this 
was first called for, and one for which our friend 
Douthit was specially fitted. It had been and 
still was his mission to acquaint the people around 
him, who had known only the harsher and gloom- 
ier forms of religion, with the simplicity that is 
in Christ, to proclaim to them the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man, to present to 
them Jesus of Nazareth as the Waj r , the Truth, 
and the Life, and to teach the supreme lessons of 
purity, justice, holiness, and love. That had 
been the essential message of historic Unitarian- 
ism, but Our Best Words went and found a joy- 
ful welcome where no other paper or magazine of 
the denomination could. Everybody knew the 
editor, and all were to know him more by and by. 
They liked the little organ for what it was, and 
they liked it also for the man who had charge of 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



35 



it and was its very soul. And during these eight 
years of its existence the copies of its successive 
issues have entered hundreds of homes throughout 
the county, and have been to them a ceaseless 
supply of comfort and inspiration ; and they have 
found their way, too, to the ministers and churches 
of our faith in many other parts of our own 
land, and on the other side of the Atlantic, 
everywhere enlisting the sympathy and evoking 
the Godspeed of good and true men and women 
for the heroic brother who, down there in South- 
ern Illinois, was battling so courageously and 
faithfully for a free, living, and large-hearted 
Gospel. 

FIGHTING THE DEMON. 

One of the most prevalent evils he has had to 
contend with in and about Shelbyville has been 
that of intemperance. He has seen it in all its 
worst forms, and has been made to feel, with 
Gladstone, that it is the cause of more woe than 
is produced by war, pestilence, and famine 
combined. It was quite a happy plan which he 
devised when he proposed to alternate each issue 
of his paper, devoted to the general interests of 



36 



A UNITARIAN OBERLTN. 



doctrinal and practical Unitarianism, with one 
particularly meant and adapted to combat this 
greatest scourge of the land. This plan he has 
carried out for several years, and with telling 
effect. With voice and pen, as editor, preacher, 
and lecturer, he has fought a good fight with 
this terrible destroyer of human homes and 
hearts. Strong and cheering testimony comes 
to him from near and far, witnessing to the 
beneficent influence he is thus exerting. Mrs. 
S. T. Hunter, president of one of the W. C. T. 
Unions, wrote to him, Januaiy 21, 1888, " Your 
paper comes to me weekly as a sort of inspira- 
tion. I like your clear, ringing notes for prohibi- 
tion, and your outspoken utterances for the 
right." And here is what had been said a short 
time before by the United States Monthly, pub- 
lished far away in the East, at Fitchburg, Mass. : 

" The good effects of the circulation of even a small Prohi- 
bition paper were strikingly shown in Shelby County, 111., at 
the late election. This county is one of the strongest Demo- 
cratic counties in the State, and there was no organized Prohi- 
bition effort in the county, and but few public meetings were 
held. At Shelbyville, Rev. J. L. Douthit published a fortnightly 
paper called Our Best Words, and eight weeks before the elec- 
tion he commenced the publication of a weekly prohibition 
edition, which was sent to a large number of voters in the 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



37 



county; and, as a result, the prohibition vote was increased 
from 81 for St. John, in 1884, to 436 for the prohibition candi- 
date for treasurer this year, and 800 for legislative candidates. 
The Lever, Chicago, 111., well says that a candid prohibition 
paper, going quietly into the homes of the people, read not 
only by the voters in these homes, but by the women and chil- 
dren, will do more for the cause than any other one agency." 

A SOLDIER OF CHRIST. 

In all this varied warfare against sin and evil, 
and in behalf of truth and righteousness, Jasper 
very well knew where and what had been the 
secret of his strength and joy ; and his faith in, 
and love for, God and Christ, and the religion of 
the New Testament, were too deep and abiding 
to admit of any essential change or disastrous 
shipwreck of his trust, amidst the fluctuations of 
opinion and tendencies of thought, that only had 
the effect, at last, to unsettle and set adrift so 
many of his brethren in the liberal household. 
Here was no dogmatist; no worshipper of mere 
creeds and forms; no lover of discord or schism; 
no foe to truth and progress. A thousand times, 
no ! Here rather was one who emphasized mightily 
the spiritual and practical in religion, and whose 
belief and service were simple and real ; who was 
a genuine and passionate devotee of freedom, and 



38 A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 

had a warm and large heart for all sects and 
parties, classes and races; longed for the widest 
possible fellowship compatible with honesty and 
self-respect, and believed, without a doubt, in the 
ultimate and universal reign of holiness and hap- 
piness. But he was a Christian, and, with the 
immortal Channing, he held that there could be 
no Christianity without the Christ. Faith in 
Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour 
of men lay at the very foundation of his deepest 
convictions and of his best work. He had incor- 
porated it into the covenant of his own church at 
Shelbyville. It was something that had entered 
as a vital and life-giving element into his own 
richest personal experience, and it was something 
which he had learned from the great teachers of 
Unitarianism, as well as from tjie Book of books, 
and which had commended itself to his reason 
and was in finest harmony with his sense of the 
need of man and the lessons of history. 

WESTERN UNITARIAN CONFERENCE. 

When, therefore, in May, 1880, the Western 
Unitarian Conference — with which he was con- 
nected — disowned such a simple confession, 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



39 



there was but one course for such a man to pur- 
sue, and that was to withdraw from the body. 
This he did; and subsequent events, as we shall 
soon see, have only shown how well he under- 
stood the situation, and how clearly he foresaw 
what must be the continued tendency and ulti- 
mate action of an organization that had re- 
nounced the Christian name. A few days after 
the meeting of the conference just referred to, he 
wrote : " The name Christian, and all it signifies 
to me, is as dear as life — as dear as my mother's 
name — and I cannot, I must not, agree with my 
brothers to hide that name under a bushel, or 
seem to ignore it, merely to please some dear 
brethren, who, if they do not despise the name, 
still seem ready to believe that they have 'grown' 
beyond the need and love of it. I know many 
of these brethren are better than I am : but I 
know too, with the burden of temptations which 
I have to struggle against, Jesus Christ is more 
to me than all other beings that ever trod the 
earth ; and I must, I must commend this great 
Master to other people, and with no uncertain 
sound. To my mind it is giving an uncertain 
sound, to acknowledge, or intimate, that the 



40 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



name Unitarian means any more or less than 
the religion of Jesus Christ. I can welcome all 
others to the best I have of faith and love, with- 
out identifying myself as a Unitarian minister 
with a so-called Unitarian organization that re- 
fuses to call itself Christian, or recognize the 
leadership of Jesus Christ." And again : " Free- 
dom in Christ is the fullest, truest, most glorious 
freedom I can ever hope to obtain on earth. I 
covet no larger fellowship, no greater freedom, 
no truer character, no more blessed experience 
than that which the faithful and loving disciple- 
ship of Jesus can give." Three years later, see- 
ing how the conference continued in its free- 
religious and radical tendencies, he wrote con- 
cerning those who were directing its affairs: "I 
have less and less faith in their theological po- 
sition, and less and less hope of any permanent 
Christian institutions being established under 
their policy ; " " There are too many sad facts 
and failures that stare me in the face, as I look 
over the past twenty years' history of Unitarian 
missionary work in the West;" "The general 
attitude and drift of Western Unitarianism is, so 
far as I can see, more of a hindrance than help to 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



41 



the sort of work I feel called to do ; " and, in the 
same connection, he said, in proof of this state- 
ment, that the renunciation of the Christian 
name, he had reason to think, had " not only 
chilled the interest of many earnest, believing 
Christian men and women among Unitarians," 
but had "also alienated many others, eminent for 
Christian zeal, outside of the denomination, who 
would have been identified with us to-day had 
the Western Conference (and all other Unitarian 
conferences and associations) taken an unequivo- 
cal and affirmative Christian position." 

JASPER TRIED, BUT TRUE. 

What with the growing sympathy of portions 
of the denomination with the new theological 
departure, Mr. Douthit was more and more left 
out in the cold. Papers in which he had a right 
to be heard were closed against him. Others, 
like the Advance, were far more hospitable. 
There had been no change in him, except that, 
if possible, his love to God and man, and his 
zeal for the Master's service, had waxed stronger 
and stronger. He was the same dear, honest, 
indefatigable, unselfish, helpful servant of the 



42 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



Lord and of humanity as he had been in 
years before, when ministers and editors and 
secretaries, and all, praised and befriended him 
most. He had only preached right on. Yet there 
were now averted faces and cooling hearts. Some 
who had worn the Christian name, or had given 
him much encouragement, were soon found to be 
in sympathy, not with him, but with the other 
party. "I am forewarned," he writes in 1884, 
with reference to his withdrawal, " that if I make 
public the facts in the case and the reasons that 
led me to such action, it is likely to bring me, and 
the work with which I am identified, into disfavor 
with some who have hitherto been friends and 
supporters." It may well be believed that the 
man who had faced the " Knights of the Golden 
Circle," and had feared not their menaces and 
machinations, was not likely to be frightened into 
silence and acquiescence by such threatened ec- 
clesiastical boycotting as that. It had been tried 
before, and has been tried since. It was the self- 
same tempter that confronted the Holy One in 
the long ago. It found nothing to its purpose in 
the Master, and it found as little in his disciple. 
"If such," continues the latter, "must be the 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



43 



result of speaking the truth in love (and I do 
not feel like speaking the truth in any other 
spirit), then all the more is it my solemn duty 
to speak for the sake of self-respect, as well as 
for the cause's sake." He had now a paper of 
his own, and its successive issues certainly gave 
forth " no uncertain sound " in relation to the 
matter in controversy. Old friends, or some of 
them, might desert him, but others rallied to his 
side, and many of the most prominent and ven- 
erated ministers and laymen of the denomination 
sent their heartfelt words of cheer, and also their 
more substantial aid, to this brave toiler of the 
prairies. 

With Dr. Clarke and others who have been named 
in our sketch as Mr. Douthit's helpers, such strong 
and faithful representatives and servants of "pure 
Christianity " as Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, Hon. 
George W. McCrary, President A. A. Livermore, 
Rev. J. H. Heywood, Rev. Henry W. Foote, 
and William H. Baldwin, and a great number 
beside, were his steadfast supporters, and are 
still his comfort. Here is what the saintly, now 
ascended Dr. Eliot, of St. Louis, wrote to him, 
under date of July 25, 1885 : — 



44 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



"Dear Brother Douthit: — I congratulate you upon be- 
coming your own publisher, with the assistance of your sons, 
and predict increasing success. Your Best Words are good, 
and such as need to be spoken. Speak them gently, firmly, 
forcibly. There is seldom need of being aggressive, but always 
the truth must be spoken. It can be spoken ' in love,' as the 
apostle commands, but a faithful testimony must be borne, for 
our own souls' sake. To deny that faith in God and in Immor- 
tality is essential to religion, simply proves, not that one has 
gone beyond his depth in speculations too profound for him, but 
that he has not yet wet his feet in the great ocean of Truth be- 
fore us. To attempt the building up of a Christian church, 
Unitarian or other, with the name of Christ carefully omitted 
and with discipleship to Christ denied, is like child's play in- 
stead of manly work. Let us stand for what we are. If we 
have outgrown Jesus Christ, let us openly avow it, as we have 
a right to do; but we have no right in that case to hold to 
the name of ' Unitarian,' which implies and has always implied 
6 Christian.' Yours with Godspeed, 

"W. G. Eliot." 

Nor can we forbear making mention again of 
Miss Dix, the philanthropist, who shrank from 
the public gaze in all her Christlike labors, but 
to whom Our Best Words paid a fitting tribute 
after her death. Said the editor in his paper of 
September 15, 1887 : — 

" When Our Best Words felt compelled to take the course it 
did by insisting that Unitarianism should not be diverted from 
its historic line, but continue to be known as synonymous with 
pure Christianity, her letters were frequent, warm, and full of 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIN. 



45 



sympathy. Very frequently manuscript would come from her, 
or cuttings which she desired to be printed in Our Best Words. 
The variety and interest of our little paper have been due in a 
good degree to the selections she has sent us from her sick-bed. 
Once we put her name to a communication, but the next mail 
brought a request that everything from her be anonymous. She 
interested herself in getting subscribers for this paper, and sev- 
eral of our subscribers are due to her exertions while lying on 
her sick-bed, ' too ill to write but a word,' as the message 
comes on so many of her later missives. So loving and kind 
were her expressions, always, that, although we never saw her 
face, yet we felt toward her as if she were mother, sister, and 
friend all in one." 

THE SUBHEADER AT CINCINNATI. 

The action of the Western Conference, while 
dropping the Christian name, had still retained a 
simple theistic basis. But that this, too, would 
sooner or later be abandoned, was evident to all 
who were familiar with the facts in the case, and 
who had eyes to see. At the meeting in Cincin- 
nati, in May, 1886, the following resolutions, 
which, if adopted, would have put the conference 
into substantial harmony with the Constitution of 
the American Unitarian Association, were voted 
down : — 

Besolved, That the primary object of this Conference is to 
diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests of pure Chris- 
tianity. 



46 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



Besolved, That, while rejecting all creeds and creed limita- 
tions, the Western Unitarian Conference hereby expresses its 
purpose as a body to be the promotion of love to God and love 
to man. 

In place of this very simple and reasonable 
statement, those who favored only an ethical 
basis proposed and carried, by more than a three- 
fourths majority, the following resolution, which, 
it will be seen, makes no distinct recognition of 
God or Christ, and leaves out all express reference 
to religion and worship ; and this, too, avowedly, 
with the object in view of including any or all 
who have no faith in these things : — 

Resolved, That the Western Conference conditions its fellow- 
ship on no dogmatic tests, but welcomes all who wish to join it 
to help establish truth, righteousness, and love in the world. 

On such a platform, deists and atheists, materi- 
alists and agnostics, Spiritualists and Salvation- 
ists, Mohammedans and Mormons, and all, might 
consent to stand, for none of them, probably, 
would say that they do not hold to truth, 
righteousness, and love. All men accept in 
theory these general principles. Is there, then, 
nothing more or other than what all sorts of 
religionists and non-religionists can thus unite 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



47 



in saying, which shall stand henceforth for Uni- 
tarianism, and receive Unitarian sanction, and 
bear the Unitarian name ? Nothing, declares the 
Western Conference ; and Mr. Gannett faith- 
fully represents that body, when he insists that 
one may be a Unitarian who is not a theist, nor 
a Christian, nor a worshipper at all. What would 
the Fathers of our Israel have said to that ? One 
thing is certain : they would not have been so 
blind to what is going on in the churches 
as are many of their descendants. Says Mr. 
Sunderland, in his very able pamphlet, " The 
Issue in the West," in which he so thoroughly 
exposes the true character and disastrous effects 
of what an eminent authority has well stjded the 
siviftest decline of faith of ivhich ive have any 
record in Christian history : " Belief in the 
Christian religion, or belief in any such high 
form as distinctly recognizes a conscious intelli- 
gence and goodness over the w T orld inviting man's 
worship, — this must not be held to be essential. 
Even for the ordination of men to the ministry — 
to be recognized teachers and preachers of Uni- 
tarianism — theistic belief must not be required : 
our pulpits and pastorates must be as distinctly 



48 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIX. 



open to the agnostic or the atheist as to the 
theist or the Christian." Mr. Douthit could 
well claim that he had had no part or lot in this 
matter. Mr. Sunderland justly adds : " I need 
hardly say that, for a number of years past, 
warning voices have not been few in the West, 
telling of trouble certainly ahead if the attempt 
was persisted in of thus revolutionizing Western 
Unitarianism. Mr. Douthit, after several years 
of protest inside the Western Conference, with- 
drew from that body because of its extreme non- 
Christian tendencies, and established his paper 
the more effectively to voice his protest." And 
he instances others, such as Mr. Clute of Iowa, 
Dr. Eliot of St. Louis, the Meadville men, Mr. 
Cutter of Buffalo, Mr. Gordon of Milwaukee, 
Mr. Batchelor and Mr. Herford of Chicago, 
and Mr. A. N. Alcott of Kalamazoo, Mich, 
(the last at length withdrawing from the denomi- 
nation in consequence of the marked and rapid 
changes referred to), — all of them among the best 
ministers of our churches in that section of the 
country — who also sought to arrest the fatal 
drift, and foretold the evils that would ensue 
unless the tide was checked and made to set in 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



49 



a different direction. And he adds again : " It 
would seem that all these protests and warnings " 
(in which Mr. Sunderland himself, we may say, 
also took a calm, strong, and manly part) " surely 
ought to have caused our 6 freedom, fellowship, 
and character ' friends to reflect how revolutionary 
a thing they were undertaking, and how certainly, 
if persevered in, it must bring discord and divis- 
ion all over the West, where there used to be, 
and ought to be still, union, harmony, and peace. 
And if there are any voices of controversy begin- 
ning to be heard in any quarter among us to- 
day, or if anywhere the harmony and unity 
of spirit among churches and ministers is less 
than we could desire, can any one mistake as 
to where the responsibility rests ? Surely it can 
rest only in one place and that is with the inno- 
vators." 

NEW MOVEMENTS AND HOPES. 

And these " innovators," ostensibly or profess- 
edly seeking the broadest and most loving fellow- 
ship, proved to be the narrowest, extremest, exclu- 
sionists, shutting out, not only God and Christ, or 
all distinct recognition of them, but a large num- 



50 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



ber of brethren whom such a recognition had 
drawn into membership and who could not 
conscientiously remain after it had been so un- 
warrantably blotted out against their protesta- 
tions and in violation of their right. As our 
readers are aware, the excluded party proceeded 
to establish a new Western Association, founding 
it on a more Christian basis. And about the 
same time was started the Western monthly 
magazine, The Unitarian, published to voice 
more freely and widely the simple Gospel which 
had been wounded in the house of its friends, and 
most ably edited by Rev. J. T. Sunderland, of 
Ann Arbor, Mich., and Rev. Brooke Herford, of 
Boston, Mass. The new organ, most admirable 
in its spirit and interesting in its contents, leaped 
at once into full life and large success. It is not 
without its danger, evident at times, of sinking its 
Christian faith into some simple form of theism, 
or of losing its more positive and aggressive force 
through an undue desire or disposition to com- 
promise with the other side. For instance, the 
Unitarian, referring, in the January number 
(1888), to the constitution recently adopted 
by the Minnesota Conference, says of it : " We 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



51 



are unable to see how anything less than this can 
give a basis for real religious work on the part of 
any conference or organization. This does give 
such a basis. We believe that if the Western 
Conference will consent to place itself upon 
this basis, there is still ground for hope that 
It may unite the West again." The reader 
who may be curious to see what this " basis 
for real religious work," as presented by the 
Minnesota Unitarians, consists of, will find it 
set forth in the December number (1887) of 
the same magazine, in the following words : 
" This Conference is formed to bring the 
churches into closer cooperation, and aims to 
help preserve and strengthen religion in Min- 
nesota, by working to make it more reverent, 
rational, just, charitable, and humane. Since the 
idea of Divine Unity, expressed in the Unitarian 
name, has assumed so large a meaning and im- 
portance in modern thought ; and since its in- 
cluded duty to Human Unity and Love is the 
nearest one in religious life, the Conference 
adopts this name. For the same reason it uses 
the name in no sectarian sense ; but will gladly 
unite with any churches, of any other name, that 



52 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



work for the above aim, — and cordially invites 
them to its meetings and membership." 

However this somewhat labored and nebulous 
statement may contain the words Churches, Relig- 
ion, and Divine Unity, — on which account the 
editors of the Unitarian regard it with so much 
satisfaction and hope, — it fails utterly to reach 
the high-water mark of the following declaration 
by Mr. Sunderland, as contained in his little pam- 
phlet already quoted from : " I believe and main- 
tain that no religion which does not root itself 
down in those deepest faiths of man — those natu- 
ral, ineradicable faiths that have been the life and 
power of Christianity — faith in God, faith in 
prayer, faith in immortality, faith in such a life 
lived on earth, of consecration to holiness and 
felt sonship with God, as Jesus lived — can ever 
move, much less renovate human nature, or make 
anything more than a ripple on the surface of hu- 
man society." And words of like meaning and 
emphasis, it is unnecessary to say, might readily 
be taken from one and another of Mr. Herford's 
writings. And it is this clearer, stronger faith 
which will prevail in the end. Truth will not be 
less bold and determined than the error with 



A UNITARIAN OKEItLIN. 



53 



which it disputes the field ; and the Unitarian 
Church, at large, will still hold to the Christ. 

LET HIM FLY HIS BANNER. 

Widely useful and greatly needed as is the Uni- 
tarian^ let Mr. Douthit also keep his banner fly- 
ing. Both give cheering indications that there 
are large and influential numbers in our churches 
in the West, as in the East, that still mean Chris- 
tianity and mean to say it. Our Best Words 
has peculiar claims to encouragement and support. 
Its " no uncertain sound " is inspiriting far, far 
beyond the limits of Shelby County, while there 
in Southern Illinois it is a helpful and beneficent 
agency which the editor has established at much 
cost of time, toil, and care, and such money as he 
could command for the purpose, and which, in 
connection with the mission he is called to fulfil, 
he cannot well do without. No amount of oppo- 
sition has availed to. crush out or silence this little 
organ of Gospel truth and practical righteousness. 
Denominationalists, who have never thought of 
asking their more radical brethren to cease from 
publishing anti-Christian papers, have earnestly 



54 



A UNITARIAN OBEKLIN. 



desired Jasper to discontinue the one which he 
was making so pronounced in its loyalty to the 
Master, But the work has still gone on. They 
have stopped their subscriptions, or sent him an- 
gry letters, or, most likely, have done both, in 
token of their idea of free thought and broad fel- 
lowship. He has generously opened his columns 
to their complaints or aspersions, and has answered 
them by fresh plans for enlarged service of the 
Lord. Anonymous servitors and accomplices of 
the Rum Power have threatened him and his 
office with destruction, unless he should let them 
alone and permit their infamous business to go on 
unmolested. He has replied to them and con- 
founded them by offers of reward for the disclos- 
ure of their names, and by a more strenuous war- 
fare against their iniquity. Mr. Douthit has known 
well what he was about, and has had indeed the 
courage of his convictions. No rose-water jets, 
no flowery pellets here, but hard cannon-shot and 
downright battle for the good of souls and for the 
glory of God. No more devoted* missionary has 
ever been in the ranks of the Unitarian body, or 
of any Christian denomination. 

His life has been one of poverty, hardship, toil, 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



55 



struggle, pain, and suffering. He has known, from 
many a bitter experience, what is meant by re- 
proach, and denunciation, and misunderstanding, 
and frowns, and neglect, and contempt, and per- 
secution. Yet he has had royal friends, and he 
has kept the faith, and, out of a great, loving 
heart, he has toiled on, with much weariness, yet 
with a thankful and hopeful spirit, to save the 
tempted and the sinful, and to widen the kingdom 
of God. And this is the prophecy which we put 
on record and ask the reader to remember, that in 
some future time, when all these discordant 
voices have ceased, and men shall go back into the 
past to inquire into the history of American Uni- 
tarianism, and shall ask who have best borne 
witness to the truth as it is in Jesus, who have 
been its confessors and martyrs, and who have 
been the Oberlins to them that were in sore need 
and had few to counsel and comfort, to guide and 
bless them, they will surely make their pilgrimage 
to Shelbyville and its neighboring settlements, and 
learn more than we have told here of Jasper L. 
Douthit, and will 

" Glean up the scattered ashes into history's golden urn." 



56 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



WHAT ROBERT COLLYER SAID OF HIM. 

Not that there have not been those who have 
seen what sort of a man he was or is, who have 
strengthened his hands and heart, and whose words 
about him have in some measure anticipated the 
verdict of the future. Good Robert Collyer was 
the first to welcome him to the West, as we have 
seen, and all the way along has spoken and writ- 
ten many a just tribute to him, and also rendered 
him generous assistance in his work. Here is 
what he said of him in the Christian Register of 
October 15, 1870 : " I can hardly tell how much 
good Mr. Douthit has done in that region. It is 
to me simply wonderful. A slender, gentle-eyed 
man, born there, raised there, and so situated as 
to make the work he has been called to do pecul- 
iarly painful and perplexing, he has wrought with 
such a manful and Christian valor as to win his 
way where any other man, one thinks, must have 
failed. He was an abolitionist when the aboli- 
tionist was no better down there than a mad dog. 
A Republican when his vote was the single Repub- 
lican vote of the precinct — I think, of the district. 
He carried the steady flame of loyalty through 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



57 



the darkest days of the war; was denounced in the 
local papers ; shots were fired at his house ; every- 
thing was done that could be done to drive him 
out of the country ; but he went on his way doing 
his duty, standing fast in the liberty wherewith 
Christ had made him free, and ended by winning. 
He has two congregations now ; one at this Oak 
Grove, and one at the Log Church, a few miles 
away. Religious men and women of other per- 
suasions join with him and help him in the sing- 
ing and prayer. Everybody, now, believes in 
Jasper. He has tackled some of the vile whiskey- 
shops that were spreading ruin through his land, 
and torn them up by the roots. His brothers, 
splendid, stalwart fellows, are on his side, and 
maintain his cause. He goes to Mattoon once a 
month when he is strong enough, and has a small 
hearing there. He writes a religious column for 
one of the papers, and has a small farm beside; 
but I doubt whether he is much of a farmer, and 
small blame to him." And Mr. Collyer adds 
this fitting word : " Is it worth my while to say 
that his best helper and inspirer, after God, is his 
wife ? — a small, slender woman, from Abington, in 
Massachusetts, who is proud and glad, in her quiet 



58 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



way, of the good work ; works herself, also, I fear, 
beyond her strength, but does not seem to know 
it ; a poet and a thinker, doing her own house- 
work, a woman's work on a farm, caring for her 
little brood of children, and almost not regret- 
ting that she is five or six hundred miles from a 
mountain, and eight or nine from the sea." 

REY. DR. HOSMER'S TRIBUTE. 

In the Liberal Christian, of June 7, 1873, is a 
letter from Rev. Dr. George W. Hosmer, who was 
president of Antioch College, and who was at the 
time on a visit to Shelbyville, at Mr. Douthit's. 
He writes of the "quiet country " and the " beau- 
tiful grove around the simple home," of the "large 
case of some of the best books usually found in 
a minister's library," the pictures of Channing, 
Parker, Collyer, and George Douthit, on the wall, 
and the " calm, sweet dignity " of the wife, who 
was " not a stranger to books and the muses." 
And then he goes on to say : " We really have an 
Oberlin here in Southern Illinois. Brother Dou- 
thit strives to suppty the spiritual wants of the 
people anywhere within six or seven or ten miles. 
He has four principal preaching stations, and, by 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



59 



his large, catholic spirit and fine, sharp thought, 
he is winning hearers and fellow-workers, and a 
great enlightenment already appears. People are 
collected for worship ; schools are better managed 
and more cared for ; the whole tone of life is im- 
proved. Our missionary has a very loving spirit 
towards all; but he is fearless, aggressive, and 
strikes well aimed blows at error and vices that 
stand in the way of improvement — a John in 
sweetness and benignity, but a Paladin in courage 
to stand forth against wrong in opinion or custom. 
.... Here Mr. Douthit is reaching out to this 
whole country, making ganglionic centres of in- 
fluence, and keeping them all charged with the 
pure, liberal, powerful spirit of Christ ; and if he 
could have two or three helpers, in five years a 
dozen Liberal Christian churches would appear in 
a circuit of twenty miles in villages and country 
neighborhoods. But it is a work of great sacri- 
fice, and I know not where helpers can be found. 
It will not be easy to multiply Oberlins, but this 
one — born and brought up here amidst privation 
and hardship, whom the Lord has sent us, so prov- 
identially fitted for the difficult work — we must 
know and encourage." 



60 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



TOUCHING WORDS BY GOVERNOR LONG. 

In the March number of the Unitarian Review 
(Boston), for the year 1875, there was an admi- 
rable article by Hon. John D. Long, late Gover- 
nor of Massachusetts, on " The Relation of 
Church Observances to Religious Life ; " and 
the writer, towards the close of his paper, illus- 
trated his subject with this fine and touching 
description of our Oberlin as he had lately ap- 
peared and spoken in public, before a large audi- 
ence and on an important occasion: "At the 
recent National Conference at Saratoga, where, 
with the few usual exceptions which prove the 
rule, everybody was brilliant and fervid and 
kindling ; where some denominational questions 
were argued with rare eloquence ; where orators 
spoke, unsurpassed in graceful persuasiveness or 
magnificent declamation ; where elaborate think- 
ers searched the obscurest enigmas of theology 
and science, the audience groping to follow, — 
you who were there remember that one evening, 
at a sort of missionary meeting, there came for- 
ward a young man, slender and tall, and as lank 
as Abraham Lincoln. His straight hair ran down 



A UNITARIAN OBEELIN. 



61 



behind his ears to the collar of his coat. He 
rambled in his speech, as if he were timid before 
that cultivated assembly, and stumbled over the 
minutes which at first he held in his hands. But 
his voice somehow was of that sympathetic, 
human sort that you couldn't help listening to 
it ; his eyes were so honest and soulful and 
saintly that you couldn't look away from them ; 
and as he narrated in a homely way his labors 
among obscure men in obscure places, his preach- 
ing in barns and taverns and court-houses and 
school-rooms, in that Egypt which is the Naza- 
reth of his State, going about doing good, liter- 
ally following in the steps of the Saviour, with 
scarce other compensation than his own sense of 
doing the Master's work, — so worn with his 
labors that he was almost too ill to be at 
Saratoga, — the heart of every man and woman 
in that audience went out to him and loved him ; 
and more than one cheek was wet with tears. 
Human nature, which loves warm existences and 
generous deeds, and wearies of philosophy and 
talk, seemed to assert itself with a glad sense of 
relief ; and this genuine Christian warrior and 
holy pilgrim became from that hour the very 



62 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



hero of that great conference, though himself all 
the time utterly simple, unaffected, and uncon- 
scious ; and as I looked at his pale face and lis- 
tened to the sweet Methodistical appeal of his 
voice, which rose into the eloquence of truth, 
when he threw his notes aside and uttered his 
soul in the freedom of his own quaint, natural 
exhortatoiy style, like a bird singing in its native 
forest ; and as I thought of the Jim Bludsos, the 
rough natures, the hungry souls, whom no white 
choker or clerical pedant could have touched, 
but to whom he had brought a gleam of the 
higher light and life, and in whom he had im- 
planted the springing seeds of Christian charity 
and culture, of the homes he had blessed and 
the hearts he had lightened, — then and there 
it was that, walking on the plains of Judea, 
healing the sick, blessing little children, feeding 
the poor, and comforting the sinning and the sor- 
rowing, I saw, with my own eyes, once more upon 
the earth, a living disciple of the blessed Jesus 
of Nazareth. Such a spirit and such a life, adapt- 
ing themselves of course to every variety of cir- 
cumstances and society, are what, if there is any 
worth in Christianity, the Christian Unitarian 



A UNITAKIAN OBERLIN. 



63 



body wants to-day ; for such were the life and 
spirit of Jesus Christ, its founder." 

TESTIMONY OF ELDER ELLIS. 

The gifted and honored ex-Governor has said 
many noble and beautiful words in his lifetime ; 
but he has rarely, if ever, said anything that has 
done more credit to his mind and heart than that. 
And let us hear, too, from prominent men of 
evangelical communions ; for there are plenty 
of them who are not slow to recognize a Christian 
brother, in one who truly loves and serves the 
Master, however he may bear the Unitarian name, 
and there have not been wanting ministers of such 
denominations who have gladly cooperated with 
Mr. Douthit in his labors, or have rejoiced to 
welcome him to their pulpits, however much they 
dissented from his liberal views. Elder John 
Ellis, whom we have already mentioned, wrote 
from Shelbyville, February 29, 1876: "Brother 
Douthit has labored in this field for about eight 
years past, and, although it was a most unprom- 
ising vineyard to commence with, as much so, I 
think, as I ever saw, yet, by dint of persistent 
and earnest effort, he has succeeded beyond his 



64 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



most sanguine expectations. He has, by the 
assistance of our great Father in heaven, gath- 
ered up, and organized into successful operation, 
some four or five very respectable societies, 
within a radius of ten miles, and I found them 
so nearly on the platform of the old Christians 
that it is difficult to see any difference between 
them. He is a Channing Unitarian, and sails 
under that banner, and yet is what I would call 
a real, out-and-out, old-fashioned, Orthodox, Evan- 
gelical, Congregational, progressive, liberal Chris- 
tian. I assisted him in the organization of his 
first church long years ago, and rejoice to find 
the good work still going steadily on under his 
efficient labors ; and as the harvest here is truly 
great, and faithful laborers ar§ few, I expect, 
the Lord willing, to remain perhaps for years 
and work as a colaborer with him." 

IN THE TRUE "APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION." 

We might easily multiply here such testimo- 
nies, from orthodox and liberal believers alike, but 
it is not necessary. Yet we cannot forbear quot- 
ing the following, which was written lately by a 
well known Episcopalian, and which we take from 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



65 



The Unitarian, of March, 1887, with the Editor's 
own words of introduction : — 

4 4 In an attractive memorial volume, just published, of the 
Shelby Seminary, Shelby ville, 111., we are given a graphic 
sketch of the life and work of our esteemed brother, Rev. Jas- 
per L. Douthit, whose devoted and heroic labors and self-for- 
getting spirit shine so beautifully in our Western missionary 
annals. The sketch is from the pen of Hon. George R. Wend- 
ling, the well known public lecturer, who is a fellow-townsman 
of Mr. Douthit, and has known him intimately since boyhood. 
We gladly give our readers a short passage. After presenting 
a somewhat detailed account of Mr. Douthit' s life, Mr. Wend- 
ling says : — 

" 6 For seventeen years this man, with frail bodily health, 
has been a poor Unitarian preacher here at our doors. Seven- 
teen years, long years, of self-sacrifice and ceaseless toil, in 
sunlight and by starlight ! and, upon my word, I believe he 
has suffered it all and done it all for Christ's sake. In a vague 
sort of way many good people thought, until of late years, that 
Unitarianism was a thing not quite so vulgar as Ingersollism, 
but every whit as bad as Voltairism, and not nearly so comfort- 
ing a thing as damnation for infants and sulphurous hell for 
adults. And so Jasper was not received for a while in any of 
our orthodox pulpits on Thanksgiving Days and such like occa- 
sions. I used to think in those days, and I must have been a 
coward or I should have said it aloud, that just that sort of or- 
thodoxy made war on Christ, Luther, and Wesley. This poor 
Unitarian heretic went his quiet way, as I saw him year after 
year, lived down a senseless prejudice against his church, 
erected a beautiful house of worship in our town, gathered 
about him a large congregation, most of them sadly needing the 
influence of a good man (almost to the same degree as other 
congregations in town), and now has a splendid Sunday-school, 



66 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



maintains a country mission, edits a pure newspaper, and I 
will testify everywhere that his whole life-work and example in 
this county have been an evangel of peace, temperance, and 
purity. He believes in Channingand calls himself a Unitarian ! 
I believe in the Apostles' Creed, take some stock in the ^apos- 
tolic succession," and am an Episcopalian ; but, taking it alto- 
gether, when we all meet at the judgment day, to answer for our 
deeds as Christians and as citizens, I think I would like to ex- 
change places with him. It is the life we lead, more than the 
i 1 isms " we hang to, and so I write it down as my calm judgment 
that Jasper Douthit, by his pure, self-sacrificing, and unosten- 
tatious life, has furnished a better example of genuine heroism 
and nobility than any man our county has given birth to.' " 



THE PROSPECTUS. 

While writing the last pages of this sketch of 
Mr. Douthit, we have received a copy of the pro- 
spectus of a new series of Our Best Words, and 
we know not how better to close our review of 
his life and labors than by presenting to the reader 
its full contents. It is another illustration of his 
spirit of enterprise. It reveals, better than we 
can express them ourselves, the thought and faith 
which have given character to his work, and 
which are the outcome of his own deep and living 
personal experience. As showing what he stands 
for and what are his aims and purposes, it has the 
Gospel ring, and is fresh and vital, and breezy and 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



67 



free with the noblest life of the great West in 
which he has lived and wrought, and with the 
truly liberal and progressive spirit of the age. 
And we give it place, also, that those who would 
like to encourage our brother may have a better 
opportunity to know what sort of a paper he 
edits, and so be led to assist him by becoming 
subscribers to it if they are not already, or by ex- 
tending to him a helping hand in such other ways 
as their judgment shall approve. We know of no 
one who more richly deserves the sympathy and 
support of the good and the true ; no cause that 
is more instinct and accordant with the very heart 
of Christ. Jasper is still at his post. He has, at 
various times, been asked to enter the service else- 
where, with offers of a larger salary. Twice he 
was tendered honorable and lucrative appoint- 
ments under the administrations of Presidents 
Lincoln and Grant. But all such inducements or 
temptations have been declined. He has preferred 
to remain in charge of his much loved mission and 
to bear its burdens, trusting, not in vain, to the 
American Unitarian Association and the friends 
of Libera] Christianity, and most of all to God, for 
succor and success. 



68 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIX, 



"OUR BEST WORDS" (Semi-Monthly). 

FOB CHURCH AND HOME. 

New series begins March 1, 1888, with No. 3, Yol. 9. — Es- 
tablished in 1880. Published in Shelby ville, 111., on the first 
and fifteenth of each month, and edited by Jasper L. 
Douthit. Size, 8 pages, four columns, quarto. Price, $1 per 
year, in advance. 

Motto. — Inessentials, Unity; in non-essentials, Liberty; 
in all things, Charity. Much in little, and that to the point. 

A cheap paper, easily read, and with helpful words for old 
and young, of all classes and conditions, both learned and un- 
learned, rich and poor. 

Contributors. — Among the contributors for 1888 are the 
following : Rev. Robert Collyer, Church of the Messiah, New 
York City; Rev. A. P. Putnam, D.D., Concord, Mass.; Rev. 
Henry W. Foote, D.D., King's Chapel, Boston; President A. A. 
Livermore and Prof. Geo. L. Cary, of Meadville Theological 
School; Miss E. P. Channing, Milton, Mass.; Mrs. C. C. Eliot, 
St. Louis, Mo. ; Mrs. L. A. Haskell, Alton, 111. ; Mildred 
Mifflin, author of " Out of Darkness Into Light; " Jennie Tor- 
rence, Monrovia, Liberia, Africa; Hon. George W. McCrary, 
Kansas City, Mo. ; Rev. Chas. A. Allen, New Orleans, La. ; Rev. 
J ohn H. Hey wood, Melrose, Mass. ; Rev. Henry D. Stevens, 
late editor School News, now pastor at Moline, 111. ; Rev. 
James Freeman Clarke, D.D., Church of the Disciples, Boston; 
Rev. Edward E. Hale, D.D., editor Lend a Hand, etc., Boston; 
William H. Baldwin, President Young Men's Christian Union, 
Boston; Rev. A. N. Alcott, Elgin, 111.; Rev. Oscar Clute, Mis- 
sionary of the A. U. A. in Southern California; Rev. Geo. L. 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



69 



Chaney, Atlanta, Ga. ; Ex-Lt.-Gov. Chas. S. May, Kalamazoo, 
Mich. ; Mrs. Ada H. Kepley, editor of Friend of Home, Effing- 
ham, 111. ; Rev. Rush R. Shippen, Washington, D. C. 

Each contributor is free to express his or her convictions on 
any subject of human welfare, and no one is held responsible 
for the editor's opinion, or that of any contributor. 

Its Several Departments Will Contain. — Editor's 
Table Talk; Great Little Sermons; Christian Doctrines for 
Old and Young; How to be Useful and make Home Happy; 
Denominational Items, Correspondence, etc. ; Practical Hints 
on Health, Temperance, and Education; Stories for Our 
Young Folks, Helpful Hints for Boys and Girls ; Biographical 
Sketches, occasionally, of Noted and Good Men and Women; 
The most Notable Events, and Happenings in the line of 
Social Reform, Politics, Education, Science, and Religion. 

what <4 our best words" stands for. 

It stands for the best that can be thought, said, and done by 
editor and contributors, in the line of a distinctly avowed, pure 
Christianity, and practical morality. 

It stands for the simple religion of Jesus Christ, as the sure 
way to genuine fellowship, true freedom, and good character. 

It stands for the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of 
Man ; and for the leadership of Jesus Christ in morals and re- 
ligion. 

It stands for a church membership broad enough to welcome 
all sincere followers of Christ who desire to worship together 
and work together for the Kingdom of God. 

(While the editor is a missionary of what is known as Uni- 
tarian Christianity, and claims the right to frankly but cour- 
teously speak his honest convictions, he gladly grants the same 
privilege to all who would speak in its columns " with malice 
toward none and charity for all.") 



70 



A UNITARIAN OBERLINe 



It stands for free speech on any subject of human welfare. 
It aspires to be a periodical in which (to a reasonable extent, 
within its sphere) all sides can be fairly and candidly heard. 
However, it would always " speak the truth in love," and crit- 
icise persons and things only to create more interest in good- 
ness, and to reveal truth more clearly. 

It stands for fair play to all people of both sexes, every 
race, class, party, and sect. 

It stands for helping the poor and needy to help themselves 
and others. 

It stands for temperance and social purity, and for Christian 
union in all good words and work. 

It stands for human progress, spiritual life, and the eternal 
hope. 

TTS AIMS AND PURPOSES. 

In this age of open questions in theology, when men are 
breaking loose from old forms of faith, — seeking rest and find- 
ing none, — Our Best Words would emphasize the foundation 
truths of morality and religion. In other words, it would 
strengthen the things that must ever remain unquestioned 
among all who would be good and grow better. 

It aims to emphasize the Christianity common to all sects, 
and would be sectarian only in its opposition to all unchristian 
sectarianism. 

It holds that religion is something more than ethics or mo- 
rality — it is " morality with a divine emphasis,'' "the enthusi- 
asm of humanity" or God in man a quickening spirit and 
redeeming power. 

It seeks to put the new wine into new bottles ; and thus it 
would free men from the embarrassment of assenting to creeds 
which they do not believe. 

It would accept all the good and true, both old and new, and 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



71 



cherish the good roots of the past for the sake of the flower 
and fruitage of the present and future. 

It would Christianize a false liberalism and make bigots 
and ultraists, in all sects and parties, more liberal and Chris- 
tian. 

It means to be so radical as to strike at the root of sin and 
error, and so conservative as to hold fast to all the good and 
true. 

It recognizes no " culture " as true culture, and no thought 
as 6 ' advance thought," that does not make the heart more 
pure and the life more consecrated and Christlike in seek- 
ing to cheer the faint, comfort the sorrowing, and save 
the lost. 

Our Best Words especially seeks to translate the dialect of 
a scholastic, thought-burdened Unitarian ism into the every- 
day thought and language of the common people. 

It condemns no one for honest doubt; but urges every man 
to be honest before God, and with himself and his neighbors, 
in his business relations, and in politics and religion. In a 
word, it urges men to think, speak, and live truly. 

It does not recognize any growth as healthy, nor any prog- 
ress as true, that does not make men and women better ac- 
cording to the Christian ideal of goodness — better husbands 
and wives, better fathers and mothers, better brothers and sis- 
ters, and better fellow-citizens — more pure socially, more 
faithful in married and family life, more chaste and reverent in 
speech, more honest in dealing, more Christlike in temper, 
more humble before God, and more kind and helpful to all 
people, everywhere. 

And thus Our Best Words, in its little way, would ear- 
nestly help in the glorious endeavor 

" To build the Universal Church 
Lofty as is the Love of God, 
And ample as the wants of man." 



72 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN. 



COMMENDATION. 

Our Best Words, Brother Douth.it' s excellent fortnightly 
paper, comes to us considerably enlarged — but keeping still 
the old price, $1.00 a year. We are glad of the enlargement, 
if the publishers can afford it ; and certainly we shall regret if 
the Unitarian body of America does not give it such support as 
will enable them to afford it. It is an excellent home paper, 
containing matter for old and young. It is bright, pure, 
intensely in sympathy with all reforms and good causes, deeply 
in earnest in its efforts to bmld up a living Christianity. While 
its courage is exceptional, and its loyalty to the simple funda- 
mentals of Unitarianism is perfect, its charity is unfailing. In- 
deed, we know of no periodical that may better bear at its 
head the motto, " In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, lib- 
erty; in all things, charity." Though Our Best Words is not 
the largest or most widely known of our periodicals, we doubt 
if any in the denomination is doing a more needed work, or 
doing it with a spirit of more conscientious fidelity. — From 
The Unitarian, April, 1888. 



A UNITARIAN OBERLIN ; 

OB, 

The story of jasper l. douthit. . 



BY 

A P. PUTNAM. 



BOSTON : 
DAMRELL & UPIIAM. 

OLD CORNER BOOKSTORE. 

1888. 



fr 




